If your coordinates are in latitude/longitude, they should be in decimal degrees ( DD) format before importing into ArcGIS. Omitting the вЂњ-вЂќ sign will put your points on the wrong side of the globe. Example: the coordinates for a location in Houghton, Michigan are -88.54820, 47.11535В in latitude/longitude and 382552, 5219145 in UTM zone 16, NAD 1983 datum. If you need spacing for readability, use underscores.Д«e sure if you are using latitude/longitude coordinates that your northings are positive if north of the equator and eastings are negative if you are in the western hemisphere. Additional fields are OK, but descriptions in each header are limited to seven characters and cannot have special characters or spaces. It might be as simple as ID, X_coord, Y_coord. Your file should also contain a header line that describes each field.

Other attribute data, if available, may go into additional columns, but your points will import fine with just these three pieces of information. To import properly into ArcGIS, your data file will require a minimum of three fields: a unique identifier for each data point, and the X (easting) and Y (northing) for each location. This may be done in a spreadsheet program such as Google Spreadsheets, or the more ubiquitous Excel. latitude / longitude and NAD27.Дў) Format your data properly. If you want your locations to integrate correctly with other layers (always a good thing in GIS) you will need to know both the coordinate system and datum used by the source data, e.g. The source doesnвЂ™t matter: it might be locations recorded on a GPS unit that you donвЂ™t have a data cable for, coordinates determined from a topographic map, or a simple data set found on the internet. Importing a set of x,y coordinate pairs into ArcGIS is very straightforward, and can be a useful skill if you need to bring in simple coordinate data that is not already in a spatial format.ДЎ) Acquire some data you want to display on a map.

Esri arcgis 10.3